Monday, December 28, 2009

more on the porch floor: walking on water

we officially have a floor in the porch. more correctly, we have some floor. a little bit of floor, which is to say not all of the floor. today we have about 38" of porch floor installed. but not painted. or stained, or whatever. the wood is beautiful, but largely as per the cost of materials and finishing, construction tolerances, and things of that nature, i think we're going to paint it, not finish it. it breaks my heart a little bit, since the wood is beautiful, but it is supposed to be a porch. i suppose we will make our final decision after we lay down the flooring we have already bought, which we could get away with staining if we decide to go that direction. 38 inches of floor. i think i mentioned in an earlier entry that the porch is about 36' or 37' long. also, only about 10' is leveled and ready for flooring, so we've still got a ways to go.

our neighbor let us borrow his floor nailer. it is a cool mechanical contraption; one lines it up with a joist and wails on the plunger with a big sledge hammer to drive little "cleat" nails at a perfect 45 degree angle right over the tongue, through the board, into the joist. of course, since most of the joists are pressure treated, we have to use galvanized or stainless hardware. oh yeah, and they don't make galvanized flooring nails for this thing, so i bought a $99 box of stainless steel nails (1000 count); a normal box is about $23. the truth is, after all that i've found that i prefer to hammer drive regular 2.5" galvanized finishing nails. i guess i'm a little old-school that way. on a more pragmatic level, with all the metal and giant holes from failed implantation of metal, sometimes it is beneficial to feel how the nails set and maybe drive one or two additional nails at an angle into the sides of the joists.

the truth is that building your own floor is very satisfying. i can only speak for myself, but when i step out the door and my floor catches me without creaking or groaning, it is a spiritual experience. for me, walking about on the floor that i built myself is like walking on water.

it makes a person think of famous carpenters - or at least step-sons of carpenters, said to have walked on water. was he actually walking on water, or did he just build himself a really nice floor one day, and in telling his friends and disciples was terribly misunderstood? growing up in a household with a professional carpenter, one is bound to learn a thing or two. in particular, if one had been away from the trade for a while and then built himself a nice floor, i think he'd be beaming over it. it is quite a thing to walk on a floor that one has built with his own hands.